Be sure to include your name, daytime phone number, address, name and phone number of legal next-of-kin, method of payment, and the name of the funeral home/crematory to contact for verification of death.

Search warrants: Holden’s children saw him shoot their mother and grandparents

Nathan Lorenzo Holden fatally shot his in-laws and critically wounded his estranged wife in front of the couple’s three children last week before he handed a cell phone to his 15-year-old son and told him to call 911, Wake County sheriff’s deputies wrote in search warrants made public Wednesday.

Deputies charged Holden, 30, of 6494 Stag Trail near Wendell, with two counts of murder. He is being held at the Wake County jail without benefit of bail. He has not yet been charged in connection with the shooting of his wife, a jail spokesman said Wednesday.

Nathan Holden, 30, and his wife Latonya Annette Holden, 32, separated late last year after she filed a domestic violence protective order against her husband.

“I have moved out of the home (separated) and he continues to call me and my parents threatening to take my children,” Latonya Holden wrote in an application for a protective order at the Wake County District Court on Jan. 2. “He attempted to come to my parents’ home and my father called the police. He told my brother he was going to kill the kids and himself. He threatened to punch me. He beat my son with a broom.”

Latonya Holden stated it was the first time she had asked the courts for protection from her husband.

On Jan. 24, Wake County District Court Judge K. Bailey ordered Nathan Holden to stay at least 100 yards from his wife and children at all times. Nathan Holden was granted visitation at his home with his son and two daughters, ages 8 and 9, every other Friday after school until 6 p.m. Sunday.

Latonya Holden also told the court that her husband had a permit to own a pistol. The court ordered him “to surrender all firearms, ammunition and gun permits as part of the protective order,” court records show. But in addition to the High Point .380-caliber handgun deputies seized from Nathan Holden after the shootings, investigators found a box of 32 rounds of .380 ammo in his home, court records show.

The shootings occurred just before 10 p.m. at the home of Latonya Holden’s parents on Lake Glad Road in Wendell, where she was staying with her children.

Inside the home, deputies found the Holden’s three children unharmed. Their grandmother, Anglia Smith Taylor, 57, had a gunshot wound to the chest, and Latonya Holden had at least one gunshot wound to her face.

Outside the house, deputies found the children’s grandfather, Sylvester Taylor, 66, dead of a gunshot wound.

The children told deputies that after their father shot their mother he punched her in the face several times, according to the warrants.

The Holdens’ son had celebrated his 15th birthday four days before the shooting. The couple’s 9-year-old daughter celebrated her ninth birthday this week, on Wednesday, court records show.

Although Nathan Holden made his son call 911, a young girl can be heard in the dispatcher’s recording telling someone that something has happened to “Grandma.”

“My grandparents (have) been shot,” the 15-year-old told the dispatcher, explaining that someone came into the house and shot his grandparents and beat up his mother.

The children said their father fled the home in a dark-colored, 1987 Chevrolet pickup truck. Holden was arrested at his home in the 6800 block of Knightdale Eagle Rock Road in Wendell, about 10 miles from where the shootings took place, according to the warrant.

In her application for a domestic violence protective order, Latonya Holden indicated her husband’s work “varies” as a self-employed contractor.

Among the items seized from Nathan Holden’s home was a business card indicating he is a professional barber. Investigators also seized a GPS unit and Apple iPod from the home on Knightdale Eagle Rock Road, along with a gun cleaning kit and a handgun shoulder holster with an attached magazine case for a .380-caliber handgun, court records show. Staff Writer Michelle Hankerson contributed to this report.

Editor's Choice Videos

Join the Discussion

News & Observer is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere on the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.